LoveBlog - Why Yoga Doesn't Work For Me & What Does

As happy of a person that I can be, there are days I am downright moody with a side of sad and lost. I have a daily meditation practice which helps me greatly, as well as a physical yoga practice that can certainly save me from myself. Unfortunately, there are times that yoga doesn’t work for me. I could sit in a room practicing yoga, meditating all day and somehow I feel worse than when I started. I can’t let go of the thoughts running around my head, I’m annoyed by my own breathing and somehow I’m annoyed by anything and everything. What gets me out of this funk? What works when I’ve done my spiritual practice of meditation, prayer, chanting, asanas? Time. I certainly use my “Happy List” This is a list of everything that makes me happy, and I am able to choose something from the list and go out and do it. It’s a quick fix in a jam.

What I have found that these daily practices of meditation and yoga can certainly make one’s day better…actually they do help me on a regular basis…but the days I can’t get out of my own way or it feels as though others are in my way, yoga is not a quick fix. It is not a Band-Aid for emotions I don’t want to feel. Yoga is feeling them. Yoga doesn’t work all the time as a quick fix because it’s meant to move energy. It’s meant to undo and to allow us to let go. There are many different parts to yoga; the physical practice of yoga, which you would find in a yoga class. There’s also the every day work of integrating yoga into our lives as we live and work in the everyday world. Well, how can we know what to let go of if these thoughts, feelings don’t bubble to the surface? If we aren’t presented with them in our everyday life how could we, how would we know what we need to work on? During my yoga teacher training in India, we learned very little on how to adjust other people during the physical practice and the teachers did very little adjusting of us, the students. Quickly, adjusting is usually happens while you're practicing the poses and the teacher touches you and moves you into the "correct" position. Why no adjusting? Because they wanted us to learn to self adjust. The mat is just an example of our waking lives. What is happening in your life, shows up on the mat. The self-adjustment is for life off the mat as well as on. Life away from the physical practice of yoga still continues, a different part of yoga now begins. Yoga really and truly is the art of letting go. So yes, there are days that yoga, the physical, just doesn’t work for me. It’s when I integrate yoga into my everyday life, continue the work and allow time to take hold. This is letting go. Letting go of control. Letting go of the need for everything to be perfect and wonderful. Letting go of how I think my life should be.

Which brings us to today’s Love Tip: As with everything love of someone else and love of the self takes work and patience. Forgive others and forgive yourself. We will all get there.

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Peace, Love & Hugs!Dorothy

Please find the Nantucket Dharma Yoga teacher schedule below, which includes the classes I guide as well as the other teachers. And if you would like a private session with me which includes any combination relationship coaching, self-love, mediation, healing and yoga, contact me at 508-221-3394 or email me,Dorothy@DorothydStover.com.